There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy. (Henry Miller)

This morning Crazy Sue yelled at someone other than me.  She yelled, instead, at the Music teacher.  The reason for this outburst was convoluted.  Something about Crazy Sue tearing down the Music teacher's displays in the display case, and then yelling when the Music teacher asked her not to destroy her stuff.  Something like that.  The Music teacher, who knows that I have a hate on for Crazy Sue, came running to tell me about it first thing this morning when I arrived. 

It's sick to say it, but part of me felt pleased that Crazy Sue was yelling at someone else for a change.  Partly because it was nice that it wasn't me, but mostly because it was reassuring to know that Crazy Sue really is crazy and yells at other people for bizarre reasons.  It's not just me. 


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Did you know there's a whole website dedicated to pigeons wearing necklaces made of bread?  It has pictures like this:

I would like a bread necklace for myself, but it would take such a big loaf.  I would like to bake a loaf of bread so big that I could wear a bread necklace made from its crust.


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False gossip

Alec Baldwin sat next to me on the Skytrain once.  It was quarter past seven in the morning, but he smelled like rye and he fell asleep with his face pressed against the window and drooled.  He talked in his sleep too.  Most of it was incomprehensible, except for when I poked him in the arm and then distinctly heard him say, "Tortellini".


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I planted rose bushes.

I planted yellow, pink, red, and white.  Only the yellow one is blooming.  But that's okay, I like yellow the best.


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My sense of style is based entirely around my reluctance to do laundry.

And I maintain my figure by consuming a lot of popcorn and red wine.


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Some bad dog ate the corner of my book.

Not surprised.  It's a good book.


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she is graduating now

"It’s so breathtaking, I can’t inhale" (Benson Bruno, Evergreens are Prudish)

N's brother died of an undiagnosed heart condition four months ago.  Since then she has quit her job, packed up her entire house, and moved provinces to be nearer to her parents.  She says she isn't coping well, she says she is lost in grief.  And she asks why all those books about grief never tell you when the grief will stop.  I know why they don't tell you -- it's because grief does not have an end.  You can shift the weight around like you would with a heavy bag so it hurts less in one place, but that means it invariably puts pressure somewhere else.  In some places the pain is sharp and immobilizing; in others it is dull and floats a little below the surface.  I don't tell her this, because I know it is not helpful.

If I died tomorrow of an undiagnosed heart condition, the physicians that examined my heart would find rings in it -- like with trees -- some far apart when I was happiest and growing toward the sun.  And tighter ones, knotted, in the months and years when frost was unrelenting and I did not thrive.  It might actually be those tight knots that caused the undiagnosed heart condition in the first place. 

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She gets me.

Where no thing of consequence can grow

This is another anniversary since Colleen's death.  I didn't mention it to J; I do not think that she remembers.  I did not mention Colleen's birthday to her either when it passed.  It is difficult to know whether noting these days would be unnecessary and painful reminders, or whether it would simply be respectful to take a moment to remember.  I just don't know.  And so I don't say anything, and let her talk to me about her mother when she wants to, without a calendar to choose the date for her.  She seems to be so much more together than I was at her age.  Sometimes she seems more together than I am now.

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Tonight Shawn had a phone conversation with J's riding instructor.  The goal of the conversation was to make it clear that it is problematic for him when she changes their lesson times with only 45 minutes notice.  J and I were both a bit nervous at the prospect of this conversation.  J was worried that the instructor would be hurt or angry and then be less approachable with her.  I was worried about much the same thing, on J's behalf.  The instructor is a little emotionally wobbly sometimes. 

But Shawn was brilliant.  Slightly flirtatous, charming, and very light.  And somehow he still delivered the message in a way that must have left the instructor feeling flattered rather than corrected.  It was a work of art, and I felt I was in the presence of genius.  Sometimes my husband is absolutely brilliant.  I want to learn how to talk to people like this.  

When I need to correct my students I grin at them and say things like, Stop it or I'll kill you.  Or You're lucky you're cute or I'd chop your arms off.  This method works well with teenagers; they like the twisted humour.  But you cannot say that kind of thing to adults.  With adults you have to be more skilled, and I'm not skilled in this way.  Not at all.

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E stops by to talk to me at the end of the day.  J is hungry and sending me text messages.  Hurry up.  Stop talking.  I want to go home.  

E says, I came to see you because I haven't seen you for such a long time.  I agree with her.  It has been at least a month since we've talked.  Then she says, I was worried about you.  It seems like you haven't been happy lately.  I wonder what she means by that, since she has just noted that we haven't actually seen each other in a long time.  I tell her I'm fine, and I mean it.  Things are fine.

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Not 100% certain, but I think I might be wearing a shirt that was peed upon by one of the dogs.

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I'm gonna hold a pen while you drag my arm across the page.

clouds in my coffee

I am wearing a Holter monitor now.  The electrodes are stuck to me with stickers, kind of like when I was a kid and got good marks on a spelling test and the teacher would stick a smiley face to my hand.  Except these ones are stuck to my chest, and I don't think these stickers will come off nearly as easily as those smilies did.  I think I might lose some skin when they are removed.

The electrodes are a little itchy, but not very bothersome, and the monitor itself is pretty much trouble free.  It's sort of like being a 12-year-old in the 80s all over again.  That is, it's reminiscent of having a walkman stuck to my hip.  My only concern is the "event" button that I am supposed to push if I notice any symptoms like dizziness, chest pain, shortness of breath, and so forth.  Then I am to record what I was doing while experiencing the symptoms.  (I find this a bit odd because if I actually experienced any of those things I think I would be frightened and want to go to the hospital rather than begin writing a journal entry.)  But my more pressing concern (haha) is the fact that I think DorianDog may have pressed the event button this afternoon when he greeted me rather overenthusiastically by flinging himself bodily against me.  What will the doctor make of this?

Beyond that I am also wondering if the fact that J nearly gave me a heart attack this afternoon will show up in the readings.  You know those jumpy people that have crazy startle responses?  I am not usually one of those people, but today I was one of those people.  Probably because I had too much coffee, and perhaps because I was a little hyperaware of my heart already.  So when J got out of the car in the garage and brushed against the garden shovel causing it to crash loudly to the cement floor, I felt my heart give a giant squeeze to let me know it did not appreciate being surprised like that.  I should have pressed the event button at that point but I did not because I was too busy making sure we were all still alive.

I don't know what will come of this little adventure but right now I'm uncomfortably considering the possibility that I should cut back on the caffeine, which would make me sad.  I like caffeine.


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reflections of pop culture

There are twelve days left in our school year.  Twelve days of classes, that is, and then exams and meetings and all the drudgery that finishes things off until the end of the month.  But it's the twelve days that are the challenge.  I will only be attending twelve of those ten days because I have booked off two days for my Holter Monitor test.  One day it will be attached, and the following day it will be removed.  Sad that I would rather be at the doctor's office than at work right now, but that's how I feel.  I'm tired.

It's hard to stay motivated at the end of the year.  The students start behaving more wildly than usual when present, and they also start skipping class in droves.  I could see being pleased by this if I was a math teacher because only the academic types would be present, making my job easier and more pleasant.  But in Drama, when the clowns are missing, the atmosphere is actually a little lacking.  I struggle with the urge to become one of those lazy teachers that plays irrelevant movies so she can nap in the dark at the back of the room.

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delete

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Shawn is taking his car in to be fixed tomorrow, which means he will be in a courtesy car the rest of the week.  I do not look forward to hearing how he feels about the courtesy car.  This has been a horrendous couple of years for me where it comes to driving.  After driving twenty years with a spotless record, I suddenly keep backing up into things.  The most recent time I backed up into Shawn's car.  I don't know what on earth is wrong with me, but it's costing a lot of money that would better be spent on shoes.

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